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With spring in full bloom and the sun gracing us with her presence almost daily, an afternoon outdoors was long overdue.

As unplanned as this trip to Kew Gardens was, I’m glad my friend Yuqi convinced me to join her. The Royal botanical gardens are a perfect example of what happens when you take super great care of fresh grass, indigenous plants, flowers and aquatic life – a whole ecosystem is born and thrives, gifting us its natural, effervescent beauty.

So school’s out for a few weeks and with so much free time on my hands what else is there to do but explore London for the great city that it is right? Only problem is, finding exciting stuff to do here can rack up quite a dent in your bank account if you are not careful. My tip to any newbie in London would be to find events/activities that cost 10£ and below, to partake in. Most of them turn out to be free/cheaper if you go in a group or sign up early.

My friend Jordaania found this amazing website called Funzing that curates a whole bunch of unique and fun events and experiences to do in London. The first event we signed up for was a street art tour of east London. I had been there a month ago on assignment and I absolutely loved the eclecticism of the place so was really glad to get an opportunity to go back and explore it better.

Christmas Markets are quite a big trend in Europe and I only just realized that two weeks ago. London is looking very festive now that the holidays are literally right around the corner (read next week) and amongst all the Christmas markets popping up all over the place, one in particular is quintessential to London and that is The Winter Wonderland Christmas fair.

The markets have one common factor – they all have vendors selling nice little holiday trinkets that you can’t find at a normal store and a lot of homemade decor, accessories. The food at these markets my goodness! So much variety and so much yummy goodness from all over the world, all under one roof.

Okay I’m going to stop reminiscing now and give you a recap of three out of very many Christmas markets in London that you should visit.

Happy New Year and all that good stuff. 2015 already feels amazing and we are only what, 7 days in? 7 is my lucky number so hey, guess it’s a good sign! Not much talk on this post but I want to update you on my recent travel escapades during the holiday season, its been a jam packed one this time, think one of the best Christmas holidays I have had in a very long time.

Yes people, it’s about time for another pictorial:) I got an opportunity to visit the United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai and Abu dhabi for Christmas, thank you so much mum, best holiday ever! Dubai is tres amazing, so much culture all in one place and a lot of fun as well. We were only there for 5 days so the itinerary was full of tourist to-do list stuff every day and being my adventurous self, I took some random tours of my own… I learnt from the best about #LivingLikeAlocal… s/o to @CollegeTourist for the life lesson, so adapting to the city’s way of life wasn’t so challenging.

Some fun facts about Dubai guys:

Home to the Tallest building in the world – The Burj Khalifa

Home to the 1st ever 7 star hotel

Dubai issues out 16,000 visas per day! Damn…

900 flights in & out of the Dubai airport daily

Over 200 nationalities can be found in Dubai on any given day

Home to one of the biggest malls in the world – The Dubai Mall

It is the fastest growing desert country in the world

I’ll let the pictures to the rest of the talking… I will add this though… Dubai made me fall in love with hummus! Anyone who knew me from college knows how much I detested hummus, but had so much of it in Dubai that I crave it now haha.. weird I know.

Desert Safari

Le Brother fell asleep during the desert safari lol

Desert Siblings!

Downtown waiting to catch a bus

HUMMUS!

Downtown Dubai

This Cake is called The Blackout Cake… I’m sure you can tell why by the size. @Cheesecakefactory tried to kill me with this one

Loved Dubai and all it had to offer, will definitely make a point to go back and explore some more! Quick tip for anyone going there, take the metro wherever you go, much easier, cheaper than a cab and most metro stations connect to major malls and buildings all over the city so not much walking involved.

I ended my year with a short trip down to the coast with some friends which was also an amazing time, but that pictorial will be saved for another time. My wanderlusting appetite was really satisfied in 2014. I had planned to only travel to ONE country (Tanzania) as that’s all I could afford, ended up going to 3 more countries, Zanzibar, the US, and UAE all in a few months time! This proved to me that traveling wherever you wanna go is not impossible at all, you just have to make it happen for yourself and it will.

2015 is here and yet again I have one country in mind (my goal is to travel to one place I have never been every year) but I won’t limit myself to that one because who knows what’s in store???

Happy new year once again and hope you all achieve everything you have set out for the year and so much more.

So being back in the motherland has prompted me to want to travel more locally and experience Kenya for the beautiful country that it is! The past few weekends have been filled with random hiking trips, long drives and visits to parts of Nairobi and Kenya in general that I never thought I would ever go to before… Never say never guys.

First up we have an extremely random drive up to Machakos that my friends @mumodotexe and @TishJr convinced me to come along on.. visiting Kamba land with two of the coolest Kambas I know = funtimes! I didn’t take as many pictures of the place as I should have, but I know there’s going to be a next time, yes @sonniekbby?? haha..

Next… Hiking Ngong Hills. This was the smart idea of my ever bubbly @Abbakidenda. Never listening to her crazy ideas again until I know I’m fit enough to participate haha. Here I was thinking Ngong Hills can’t be that bad if I’ve hiked icy mountains in Southern California right?? WRONG. Those hills were no joke for little old me but I’m glad I pushed myself to complete all 7 even though I wanted to kill someone half the time lol.. Stay fit guys, it’s highly important.

View from the top! Kajiado County

The windmill farm is located right at the bottom of the hills, such majestic machines.

Because when you’re climbing 7 hills you must take a breather on a tree

By far the fittest person I have ever met… dude was also smoking and having a tusker the entire 22km btw – guys meet Andrew, one of the guides. He does this almost every weekend, next month he will climb Mt Kenya!

The feeling when you are done is so indescribable! Hopefully this picture speaks volumes lol

Hiking buddies!

Last trek!

Last but not least… this past weekend. @sonniekbby and I woke up after a night out on the town.. read – a night at Qz lol.. and we decided to go get some lunch, chill out, enjoy a sunny saturday. Until she suggests we should go for a drive. I didn’t see why not so fast forward 2 hrs after calling up the crew and what do you know.. we are out on the deserted but particularly serene streets of Kiambu, Tigoni and Limuru. Kenya is really beautiful… We took in the sights of the area and the tea farms that produce the best tea in the world. Yes, Kenyan tea is the best tea in the world, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon. Definitely need to do more out of Nairobi city drives.

Thanks for stopping by. More pictorials shall come if I get to travel again before the year ends, so far I’ve been quite the local wanderlusterer!